Trace of You
by evalovelace
Summary: She realizes that after all they've been through; they never talk about things like this, never a past that contains good memories like a scrapbook. She's stunned, honored that he would share this memory with her.
1. Chapter 1

I watched you run

To catch a trace of you

I fall in love

"Trace of You"-Peter Bradley Adams

* * *

><p>She told him she loved him.<p>

Love.

Present tense, future, past. In any tense, in any language, Love.

Kate Beckett told Richard Castle that she loved him.

Completely without the permission of her brain. Her heart had staged a silent coup and she was just powerless to stop it.

Morning light filters in, slicing the floorboards and ribboning her sheets. She still hasn't moved from her bed, the downy warm and soft against the hard thump of her pulse.

Love.

How did she get here?

She remembers him at her door, wild and dark, his eyes bright like sapphires prisming light. She remembers letting him in because she couldn't find enough strength in her broken body not to. She remembers his speech, doubts very much in this early morning light that she'll ever be able to forget it and remembers her brain packing up for what is clearly intending to be a very long vacation.

Then: those three words, calling her home, promising safety and hope and all the other things naive, romantically inclined girls need.

Kate Beckett is not that girl.

She is unfailingly practical. Infallibly realistic. Resolutely pragmatic.

She is not given to wispy flights of fancy and sweeping romantic gestures.

She's had boyfriends in the past that tried the whole candles and dancing gig. Moonlight dinners and fires with jazz smooth in the background.

They didn't last long.

But now, lying in bed, haloed in pale yellow, she understands why, in all those stories she read as a girl, that love conquers all. She understands now why love has the power to save, to mend, to slay dragons.

This thing, this _love_, is very real inside her. It buoys her, makes her feel like maybe she'll be able to crawl out of this dark nightmare she's drawn herself into, the harsh stop motion animation that keeps her from any sort of smooth transition.

She allows herself these thoughts, in the newness of the day, when it hasn't been bogged down with the weight of humanity. Here, she feels like she might make it, like she might actually be happy. The normal happy, the kind of happy that people seem to effortlessly have at their disposal, unaware that they probably should share with those less fortunate.

Ah but the dark thing that lives within her stirs, is wakened by the blossoming happiness deep in her chest, like a roused animal searching for food. It sinews against her, a silky reminder that she needs to lock those burgeoning thoughts of optimism away because they have no place in her world.

Not for Kate.

Never for Kate.

Happiness and wholeness left, abandoned her like her father abandoned himself to the bottle.

She sucks in a breath, willing the war inside her to subside. She tries to lock up the feeling of giddy love that awakened her, tries to hold it back, keep it from rattling the bars of the cage that she keeps it in but still, it manages to leak out, like paint on a canvas, seeping beautiful lines of color into her world, rivulets of iridescence that leave her breathless.

She gets out of bed.

* * *

><p>"Thanks Castle." She nods to the coffee on her desk, trying to keep her voice even and nonchalant, although her pulse has begun to thread and her hands shake slightly.<p>

She wants to level him with a smile, wants to take his hand like it's the most normal thing in the world, wants to not care that they are in the middle of the precinct and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, taste caffeine and love and him on her tongue.

But she doesn't, just gives him a twist of a smile, like the rind of a fruit in a martini.

He grins back, like he has the most delicious secret in the world and her stomach plummets with kinetic energy like the descent of a rollercoaster.

Is this what happiness is? This feeling, like she might sputter and burst with pure, unfiltered light? White light, all the colors of the spectrum balanced in the perfect combination.

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know about anything any more. All of her certainties have defected, citizens of a cold war.

Now there only exists a strange half-life, a fun house mirror where her resolve used to stand, resolute. She used to be so adamant in her quest for justice, there was no room for anything other than vengeance. Emotions had no place for Beckett and Kate knew better than to ask.

She wants to ask Castle, wants to know about happiness and trust and learning to heal with another person.

But that dark thing is back, edging in, looking for purchase on this new, fertile heart of hers.

So now confusion wars with happiness, with her overriding failsafe mode of disbelief.

She didn't want this.

This is exactly what she was looking to avoid, this War of the Roses.

She still doesn't know how to be herself without her mother's murder haunting her like a malevolent ghost, intent on making her honor the pact she made the night her world collapsed like a traveling circus.

She couldn't reciprocate his declaration because then she couldn't go back, she couldn't pretend any longer and Kate, Kate liked to pretend. It was so much easier that way. But when he left, when he walked out of her apartment and her body had crumbled like a marionette who's strings had been cut, she realized that without him she was so much worse.

So.

She had gone to see him, to ask for him to wait just a little while longer while she sorted herself out, knowing how unfair the question was. And maybe fate did too, because she panicked and walked out, convinced that she had destroyed them like dynamite to concrete.

But he had returned.

He came back, with words like an orison and her heart had out maneuvered her head.

And she had said them back, those three words that had laid against her heart, dormant and dusty since the day her mother had stopped breathing.

So now, now he knew.

He knew her truth, had forced her to confront it, stark and beautiful like the wide expanse of the desert.

She has so much more to tell him, so much he needs to understand. So much that she does.

She needs….more, more from him. She needs to understand in just what ways he's changed, if he too has shrugged off the vestiges of his old life the way she shed hers, sheered off like the winter coat of a sheep.

But things are changing faster than she can understand them.

She's not sure if she can delay the inevitable anymore than she already has.

* * *

><p>"Just paper work today?" He asks, gesturing to her desk. His voice normal, his question innocent but she can hear bliss in his words, like he coated all the things he was going to say to her in his love.<p>

"Yes," she sighs, not looking forward to the tedium.

"Good, I'm glad." And she raises an eyebrow slightly, in consternation.

"I'm pleased you find office work so thrilling, Castle." She throws in an eye roll. To keep up appearances. She wonders briefly in anyone can tell, if they can all see the sudden shift in her.

If they can see her love.

"Well it just means you'll be free tonight, right?"

"I guess…" She's weary. And excited. "I mean unless a body drops."

"Right. But in the event that one doesn't…"

"Then I'll be free." She supplies, annoyed at his insistence on drawing everything out, making a story out of it.

"Good. I'll see you at 7.30 then." He stands to leave and she scrambles to hide her shock. She had been looking forward to his presence while she staggered through her work.

"Why?" A hard edge to her voice, Beckett trying to break through.

He only smiles, mysterious and alluring. "Wear something nice, Detective."

Kate can only nod, dread, trepidation and sheer excitement dosing her suddenly, making her head spin.

She watches him walk out and can't contain the smile that works its way free.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: So much less angst! Will Kate finally allow herself happiness? What does Castle have planned? Stay tuned!<em>

_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters._


	2. Chapter 2

I hold my tongue

To keep it safe for you

I read your mind

I read your mind

-"Walk Away" Peter Bradley Adams

* * *

><p>Castle leaves the precinct smiling. The last 48 hours have been like a summer storm, cleaning the atmosphere, dispensing the high pressure system and in it's wake the world became fresh and new.<p>

Rebirth like rain.

He can't seem to stop replaying those moments in her apartment, Kate tucked into the couch, small and brittle like bone, desperately trying to rein in her emotions only to have them spill like marbles across hardwood floor. She told him in a voice threaded like a needle that she was lost, unsure of everything, unsteady in this world with her mended heart, relearning how to synch its rhythm back to life after the awful jolt of the electrical current.

So he had told her everything, laid at her feet all the words that had been mummified in him like a message in a bottle, bobbing with the current, looking for shoreline.

As a writer he has always believed in words.

He's a firm believer that language has power. That words can heal. That they can wound. That they can love.

This burns within him. He is forever conscious of the power of words, both public and private.

The dichotomy between the two.

As a writer he is a keen observer of the world. He likes this about himself, his ability to read and know a situation before people speak or act. He likes the shift in voices; he notices that when people talk to those they are familiar with, their tone changes. It fascinates him, like peaking behind the curtain in Oz. He's always wanted to see the wizard.

A glimpse into the privacy of words.

He's spent his life trying to understand these separate but entwined worlds.

For him, words are home. They are the language of warmth, of protection, of safety. They sing to him, hold him like a mother's embrace.

Words, he tells himself, have power.

* * *

><p>It was the story that brought him to her. That first, strange, terrible case that his words had helped facilitate. She had been different then. Hair short and spiky, bristled like porcupine quills, the color charcoal. He remembers liking the way it smudged the lines of her face and shaded into eyes dark like India ink, somehow more mysterious because there was no hidden laugh waiting to be let out.<p>

She was willowy, bowed against the harsh wind of her life but fighting desperately to stand tall. He hadn't noticed that then, hadn't noticed her fierce fight, the stiffness in her posture. All he saw then was prickly intensity, tightly wound control and quiet awkwardness, like she was still slightly unsure of her place in the world but covering up valiantly with bravado. He had wanted to shake her up a bit, make her falter.

The control she held onto was iron tight, welded to her hands. He doubted if she ever let go. When he had asked her if she had ever let her hair down, it wasn't just in jest. He was truly curious.

Never before had he met someone who was so intent on restraining every single impulse she had.

That night he had gone home and five pages worth of words had flown from his fingers. Words for her, words about her. Words, words, words.

None of them felt right.

He couldn't figure it out. All of these words weren't doing their jobs; they weren't helping him solve the riddle of her. They couldn't untangle her sphinx's smile or unravel the coil of composure that blanketed her.

Suddenly, for the first time in his life, words left him. They stripped him of their power; they refused to work for him, demanding wages like frustrated union members.

It shocked him.

He thinks about that now, about those first few months when she wasn't Kate, or even really Beckett but just Detective, that hard boiled, world weary Detective fighting for those without a voice even though so long ago she lost hers.

He had no words for her then and so Nikki Heat was born. The character created to understand Detective Beckett but led him down a winding road to Kate.

Always the words returned him to Kate, like a soldier's letter home.

He wrote furiously those first months, wrote because he didn't understand her.

He would see her, framed in the doorway, body long and lean, her sharp angles at 90 degrees, and just wonder. Wonder about the words he could give to her, thinking maybe that his words would help heal her.

The balm of prose, of story.

In time he had learned to read her, learned the language of her face like he had discovered the Rosetta stone. He became an expert in the nuances of Kate, of Beckett.

It had felt like a secret, a pact between those small shifts of her brow and him. He liked the clever arch of her eyebrow when she was amused. He was captured by the comma of her mouth as she twisted her lips to prevent a smile. He liked the dip and shift of color in her eyes, changing like the seasons. All of these things he read on her and then went home, tried to preserve them in words.

He never could, not really.

* * *

><p>He's spent nearly five years trying to find the right words, the perfect combination of them like a biometric lock.<p>

He's finally found them, last night when Kate admitted without coercion her need for him and he could no longer contain himself, his feelings flowing fast and strong like a current, wrapped in the beauty of letters.

Now his world is a roman candle of color, bursting at the seams. Vibrant, a whirling, swirling gossamer of words.

Because Kate loves him.

* * *

><p>He told her to be ready for 7.30 and had left to calm his own nerves.<p>

He was going on a date with Kate.

In public.

Tonight.

Excitement and trepidation course through him, jangling the neurons in his body like Christmas bells. The night needs to be perfect in that effortless way.

Kate, he knows, does not respond well to traditional candlelight and romance. She is far too practical a person to be wowed by the soft flicker of a flame and the sonorous sounds of a violin. He doesn't need to dazzle her, couch whatever it is that is blossoming between them like violets in a Valentine red.

He needs understatement, but most importantly, this night needs to reveal something about himself.

He knows he needs to show her more. Knows he needs to open up and let her see those soft places within him, like those Cadbury eggs Alexis loves so much at Easter. This is part of his plan tonight, let her read him like one of his books, the way he has been reading her, slowly, carefully, not wanting to ruin the story.

So, he takes his time, plans the night, and watches the clock, willing time to tick faster, desperately wanting to experience a night with an unguarded Kate.

A Kate in love.

* * *

><p>He arrives at her door precisely at 7.30, punctual like a Swiss watch and knocks like he's done this sort of thing a million times before, a man waiting to be let in.<p>

She opens the door, her face a mask, but he can see the nervousness in her eyes, in the line of her mouth.

He unfurls a smile, lets it spread across his face like butter in a pan at the sight of her, black dress, hair curled, a scarf wrapped around her shoulders like an arm.

"You look amazing," he says and watches her try to contain her smile, failing as it snags the sharp lines of her cheekbones, smooths them out.

"Thank you," she responds, ducking her head and looking up from the dark lashes hitting her cheeks, spidered by her mascara.

"Ready?"

She nods and locks up, surprises him by taking the arm he offers without hesitation like this is an everyday occurrence for them.

He glances to her, the smile still fighting to free itself across her face, although he can see her trying to rein it in, like he might abruptly run if she shows him too much of herself. It makes him ache, to watch her bury herself, to control everything that she feels so that no one might hurt her again. It's like if she can contain herself, contain her happiness, shove it deep down and keep it from growing in the light, then it won't deceive her again. She can make sure that people won't leave her just when she's starting to trust in that word again.

Stability by repression.

He thinks back suddenly, to that first year, and remembers wanting to understand why she denied herself everything.

He knows now, understands just how deep her wounds go.

All he wants is to make her happy, surely she must know that?

But with Kate, it is never safe to assume.

So.

He's determined to fix it.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: What's Castle going to do for a date? Something surprising I'm sure.<em>

_Thank you to all those who reviewed, put this on story alert or favorited it. It's wonderful._

_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters_


	3. Chapter 3

When midnight comes and finds me alone

Like the tides you turn and the clouds you roll

And I'm stuck in a dream that will not let me go

I can close my eyes and see the shape of you

Can you see mine?

Can you see mine?

-"Trace of You" Peter Bradley Adams

* * *

><p>Kate likes the scratch of his jacket against her skin, his arm linked through hers like a chain, a delightful reminder that she is going out with Richard Castle.<p>

Tonight.

A date.

She takes a deep breath, turns her head to watch the city and hide the smile that threatens to take over her face.

A hostile takeover.

She's not sure she cares.

Castle hasn't called for a cab, nor has he stopped for a car service and Kate's interest is piqued. She wants to know what he has planned for her, wants to know what this date of theirs consists of.

It isn't that she hates surprises, it's just that she….hates surprises. She hates the not knowing part, the uncertainty, the nervousness that comes like a fleet of ships, sharp and intense.

Surely Castle must know this. He knows so much about her. Sometimes that unnerves her, catches her off guard like a punch.

But sometimes, sometimes it makes her feel seen, like she's more than just a cop or a woman but someone who _matters._

The thought always send a flush of red to her chest, a bright pigment that makes her eternal.

They walk in silence, snug like a sweater, and Kate is acutely aware of how his muscles shift underneath his blazer, the thin fabric exotic and familiar at the same time.

He keeps her close, but doesn't connect their hands, just presses her arm to his, a squeeze of contentment, of possibility.

"Where are we going Castle?" She breaks their silence, turns to him with an arched eyebrow, hoping that it will make her formidable but knowing that her eyes are leaking joy, overflowing with it.

A mess she wants to never clean up.

"You'll see." He grins, the amber light from the streetlamps carving his face like a jack-o-lantern.

"Castle." She admonishes, not willing to give him her amusement yet.

"Do you trust me?" He asks softly, beautiful like cotton, spun into comfort.

She blinks; her heart speeds up like a car on the highway. "Yes."

He only smiles, nudges her shoulder with his, the gesture playful unlike the weight of his words, the intent of his eyes, glowing bright like fireflies in this New York night.

* * *

><p>The street that they are on is deserted, and she can feel the hum of excitement in him. There is nothing here, she notes, wondering just what she's gotten herself into, the grind of the sidewalk under her shoes only heightens her awareness. Castle likes fancy, shiny things, good restaurants and expensive wine.<p>

This street caters to none of that.

She begins to feel suspicious.

They turn into an alley and Kate halts, stops abruptly, making Castle jerk back. The night here is dark like a bruise and she wishes for her gun, nervousness leaches into her like a parasite.

"We're almost there," his voice ricochets off the brick like shrapnel.

Still she doesn't move and Castle lets her arm go, moves deeper into the darkness. She hears a groan of metal, heavy and solid and then:

"Kate. Come on, through here."

She hesitates for a second but moves forward, guided by the outline of him framed like a portrait near the door.

He gestures for her to go first and he follows, his hand on the skin of her back makes her ruthlessly suppress a shiver.

"Where are we?" She asks once the door is closed. Castle is behind her, she can feel his breath against her exposed neck like a whisper. He moves to the right, away from her and suddenly the darkness evaporates like water on a hot day.

She is standing in the wings of a theater, the smell of greasepaint and wood, heavy curtains and ancient ropes assault her senses. She turns to him, confusion etched onto her face like lines in the sand.

He only smiles and takes her hand, his palm warm against hers, the hollow place between them like safety.

She lets him lead her onto the stage, his steps sure and giddy, excited about something she doesn't understand.

The wood grunts beneath their feet, the grain old and tired like the theater itself, shabby and run down Kate notices, sees the moth eaten curtains and frayed ropes. She looks to the center, drawn by the flush of incandescence downstage and sees, for the first time a blanket and picnic basket set up, waiting like a patient puppy.

She looks at him and his smile is bright, brimming with excitement. "Castle what is this?"

"This is dinner," he says tugging her towards center stage, pulling her down on the cushions set up.

"Dinner?" She questions, adjusting herself on the blanket, moving into a position that doesn't hike up her dress.

She doesn't want to give him any ideas, now does she?

"Yes. When I was a little kid, my mother was doing plays here, and after matinees, if I was good, we would have a picnic on the stage. It was my favorite thing, this weekend picnic, so I tried so hard to be good through the whole show so we could do this." He smiles at her, his little boy smile, and she can see him, scrappy and a little disheveled, trying desperately to contain himself, wanting the reward so badly it hurt.

She realizes that after all they've been through; they never talk about things like this, never a past that contains good memories like a scrapbook. She's stunned, honored that he would share this memory with her, so intimate, echoes of his childhood like a music box, the sound tinkering and light.

He pulls out sandwiches, bread that looks crusty and good and handmade. He gives her one, a small smile at the corner of his mouth like a kiss.

"It's peanut butter," he says watching her unwrap it. "We didn't have a lot of money in those days so Mother would make us peanut butter sandwiches, apples and chips, of course. The perfect meal for a seven year old."

She laughs, airy and free and she sees his breath catch at the sound, like it might be his favorite song. She blushes and ducks her head.

He pulls out chips and apples, to illustrate his point and she laughs again, the sound magnified by the theater's acoustics. She vaguely wonders how long it's been since she's felt so happy, so unlike herself with this dark weight against her heart, suffocating all the progress she tries so achingly hard to make.

Tonight, thought.

Tonight she only feels happy, an agile and effervescent thing deep within her, curling around her heart and dislodging the pain that nestles against it like a bramble, slowly picking out the prongs that try to burrow further into the soft tissue.

She looks at Castle, his face painted with love, with joy, with contentment just from being here, with her, sharing this part of himself like an offering. He is beautiful; she can see that now, here in the low lights of this dilapidated theater. She leans over and brushes her fingers against his, catches his attention like a bug in a jar.

Her smile breaks across her face, like dawn on the horizon and she lets him see it, all of it, all of her, like he always has and she's only now just figuring it out.

"This is perfect." She says, not knowing any other way to describe _this_ to him, this feeling inside her, this knowledge that she carries around with her like a charm.

Call it like it is, Kate.

This love.

"You haven't seen what we have for desert yet." He teases, taking a big bite of his sandwich, mouth sticky with peanut butter and mirth.

She arches her eyebrow, "Oh?"

"Yeah just wait."

"I'm breathless with anticipation." She drops her voice and he visibly swallows.

She could get used to this.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: What does Castle have planned for desert? Knowing him, something completely unexpected. <em>

_Also, thank you to all those who reviewed, who favorited this, who put it on story alert. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Castle because if I did, we wouldn't be waiting this long for Kill Shot._


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